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He picked up on the first ring, and I asked if I woke him.
“No, the twins are asleep, Mindy’s asleep, it’s a great night for insomnia,” he quipped.
“Good. Make sure you’re sitting down for this,” I said.
“That sounds juicy,” he joked.
“I slept with her.”
“Your student. Your intern. The girl from the bar. You had sex with her,” he said, and I knew I heard amusement in his voice. “After all the shit you gave me. And Drake and Ham. Karma, my friend, loves to bite you in the ass with some irony on the side.”
“I deserved that,” I grumbled.
“I’m not trying to be mean. It just had to be said,” Kyle said.
“I realize that. Now, if you’re done saying you told me so, can we figure out how to fix this? Since you’re essentially Berkley’s expert on how to get away with sleeping with a student.”
“That is uncalled for. I don’t make a habit of it. It was one student and I married her and had a family,” he said defensively.
“That’s my point. Not that you’re a habitual offender or something, but that you dodged the bullet, didn’t let the stigma hurt either of you. How did you pull it off?” I asked.
“Are you saying you want this to be something serious with Hailey?”
“I don’t know. I know that it’s something real, and I don’t regret it. I know I should.”
“Is she there now?”
“No, what the hell? Why would I call you if she was here?”
“I don’t know why you do what you do, man. I’m coming to your place. We need to drink this over.
He hung up and I was grateful that he was coming over. If anyone could make sense of the mess I’d made, it was Kyle. I opened a bottle of Scotch I’d been saving, a gift from a client, and poured us each a stiff drink. When he came in the door, I handed it to him and he sniffed, “Nice,” he said approvingly and tasted it, giving me a nod.
We sat down and I cleared my throat, threw my drink back in one gulp.
“That’s too fine a Scotch not to take your time and appreciate it,” he admonished me, “but you’ve had your liquid courage, now tell me what happened.”
“I fucked up. You know that much. It started this morning, in class the creep in her project group was trying to hit on her and touch her in the parking lot and I should’ve let her handle it but I saw red and told him to keep his hands to himself and—”
“Well, now he’s definitely on to you,” Kyle observed. I nodded.
“I know. I tipped my hand there. I should’ve stayed out of it. Anyway, when she left REM, I walked her out because she stayed late, and her tires were slashed. I think it’s the same guy. I brought her here after we talked to the cops. One thing led to another, that kind of thing. I’m in over my head, brother,” I admitted.
“You thought you could get the attraction out of your system, stop being distracted by it,” he said knowingly. “I know what you’re going through, and it’s easy to get in your head about it and overanalyze—”
“I said that. I said I’m not going to do that and beat myself up. Then I told her she needed to quit overthinking things because it could hamper her career,” I groaned.
“Just tell me you didn’t give her a business lesson after you had sex with her,” he said.
“We weren’t even dressed yet. It was bad timing.”
“To say the least. Did she call you a dick?”
“No, she just said something snarky and called me professor.”
“Then you got off easy for that one. Anyway, how’d you leave things with her?”
“She apologized for snapping at me and said she agreed that things can’t go on between us, but I could tell she was hurt. I told her she had no reason to be sorry. I drove her home and it was quiet and awkward. I wanted to reach for her hand or turn on the radio or something, but I didn’t feel like I could.”
